Corporate compliance and privatization of law enforcement. A study of the Italian legislation in the light of the U.S. experience

In bribery cases, compliance-based defense often implies substantial efforts and costs on the side of corporations for providing enforcement agencies with the facts of the case. In several jurisdictions, corporations and their private sector investigators shape those facts as they lay the ground for a negotiation-based enforcement action ever-more frequently. While public investigators do their own factfinding missions, the financial consequences and the reputational stigma associated with bribery cases place corporations with a clear interest in proactive cooperation with the public investigation. At the same time, private entities’ proactive involvement in the fact-finding exercise questions the public monopoly on the investigative initiatives in criminal matters and, more subtly though, the very idea of State control on the law enforcement process. On several areas, peculiar kinds of public-private partnerships - featured by a hybrid approach to governance with voluntary monitoring activities and investigative strategies based on the acquisition and control of the private entities’ information assets - are gaining ground. However, in some European continental jurisdictions, which are anchored to a neat distinction between the respective roles of the public authorities and private sector in law enforcement, legislators seem particularly wary of such an equal cooperation in the fact-finding exercise and, occasionally, law enforcement authorities even perceive it as an obstacle to evaluate and evidence allegations